Centre to strive for implementing Sachar panel report : Pranab

The new government at the Centre will strive to fully implement the Sachar Committee recommendations for the welfare of the minorities, Union Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said here today.     

"Centre will do its best to fully implement the Sachar Committee recommendations for the minorities," Mukherjee, who has been renominated as Leader of Lok Sabha, said while thanking minorities for overwhelmingly voting for the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections.     

"There has been a huge response from the minorities in supporting Congress candidates and our electoral ally Trinamool Congress in the election," Mukherjee said.     

There was no celebration as such for the 73-year-old leader in his home constituency of Jangipur in Murshidabad district.     

"This is not the time to rejoice or celebrate as the entire state is reeling under the devastation caused by the cyclone," he said.     

The senior Congress leader advised workers to gear up the party machinery for the coming municipal and assembly elections in West Bengal.

Mukherjee, who is the WBPCC chief, said "The struggle has not ended. This is only the beginning. We will have to continue our state of preparedness for the coming polls too," he said.  

"People want development. We will have to carry on the pace of development, Mukherjee said.  

On his arrival here from Kolkata, he held a meeting with the Small Industrial Development Bank of India (SIDBI) Chairman R N Malla.  

He later met a delegation of the Murshidabad district Congress Committee as well as the block committee of the party.